Aye, so all of you do exist in your physical form,” said the portly gentleman, seemingly dressed for a funeral. “It seems they have taken the day off today!”
He had made the 23 of us form a semicircle around him and gone around tapping each one on the shoulder. It seemed like some cult ritual, an idea encouraged by translucent clouds, a full moon and the medieval skyline of
York in the distance. To add to the illusion of unreality, he added conversationally, “On previous evenings, my hand has gone right through a shoulder or two.”
While our curator considered it a compliment that the subjects of his Original Ghost Tour of York occasionally joined the late evening walk, the spooky drama had successfully vanquished our sense of safety in numbers. It was a crowd of people wary of each other and of their own shadows that set off on the walk in what is reputed to be the most haunted city in all of the United Kingdom.
It hadn’t always been like this. We had started our journey across northern England from Cumbria in the north-west, spent tranquil and sunny days in the Lake District, walked across Hadrian’s Wall (a medieval wall the Romans built to protect Britannia from the Celtic tribes) and partied in Newcastle, with just the odd shower reminding us we were in the UK. But, as we drove to North Yorkshire, the heavens opened up. Quite unlike the e-brochure depictions of green dales criss-crossed with happy brooks reflecting blue skies and wispy clouds, we encountered a flat grey.
Which is why at Eppleby—a little village on the B6274 motorway—it was hard to resist the warm glow emanating from the Cross Keys Inn. Nursing their evening tipple inside were the locals, country folk with rough exteriors and warm and friendly dispositions. They invited us in while Janice, the part-time bartender, immediately brought out a pot of tea. Richard, downing his beer at the bar, bought us drinks and a few others gathered around. The cheery banter started off with cricket (of course) and touched the Ganga, George Harrison and Pandit Ravi Shankar. For these men who rarely ventured out of their country, we were obviously a happy deviation from the standard evening.
They also gave us precise directions to our B&B (bed and breakfast) in Hawse, 25 miles (around 40km) away. It was still pouring when we got there an hour later but the Old Dairy Farm—rustic village house on the outside and all-luxury home stay inside—lifted our dampened spirits. Paul and Pam Cajiao, our hosts, treated us to a dinner of superb pure-bred Yorkshire lamb shanks and it seemed only fitting the next morning that the sun would send the clouds flitting away ahead of our plan for the day: a spot of cycling in the Dales.